Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.
VoltaireI detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.
Possibly VoltaireI interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to say the following…..
Last week I received an e-mail from a well-meaning reader who asked me to dedicate 30 seconds of my next radio show to say the following: “ I Do Not Hate Black Men.” Apparently some of his “fellow bloggers” have indicated that I hate black men because I included a linkin my blog roll. In fact, a few minutes ago, the blogger herself asked me to remove her site from the blog roll because she didn’t want me to become bogged down dealing with those behind the shadow campaign to silence her. I explained to her that at this point she’s actually irrelevant . This isn’t about one person. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was bigger than Rosa Parks. Brown vs. Board of Education was bigger than little Linda Brown. It’s the principle of the matter. Black bloggers OUGHT to be able to blog without having to disavow another blogger. Are you kidding me?
As I told the e-mailer, I read EVERYTHING on the internet. I read blogs by people I agree with, and people I don’t agree with. On any single day, I may visit DailyKos and Red State within seconds of each other. I might go from Bossip or Concrete Loop, Young Black and Fabulous to The African American Political Pundit Jack and Jill Politics or Oliver Willis. Sometimes I find the posts that offend me most help me most because they challenge my way of thinking and force me to examine what I believe and why I believe it. In fact, I don’t think I have yet to encounter a blogger that I agree with 65% of the time. ( Hence the need to comment!)
I found the site while being nosy quite frankly. During the Academy Awards this winter, the camera kept panning to Mellody Hobson and George Lucas sitting in the audience. It never occurred to me that they were together. In fact, I kept looking to see who Mellody had come to the Oscars with. Finally, I wondered at the end of the three of four hours if they could have possibly have come together. Being the Google Queen that I am, I Googled both of their names together and lo' and behold several sites had featured them together in the past.
I am not going to lie, at first I was just being voyeuristic and nosy, but once I started reading the posts and the comments I was amazed at what many of the commentors were saying. They were unapologetically calling for African American women to take care of themselves , the importance of valuing themselves, being fearless, and of being unafraid to want more. Sure there are comments that I would consider radical, but isn't that the point?
Quite frankly, many of the comments are considered HERESY in the Black community. THAT IS WHY I LOVE THEM! You're not reading these types of opinions in Essence Magazine! This is the kind of thing you only get on the internet.
I personally have no interest in who you date and marry as long as you are building a happy healthy life, but being unapologetic for taking care of myself, I’m loving it.
I’m not ceding control of the internet to people who are so thin-skinned and despotic that they cannot abide a scintilla of dissent. So the link to the site isn’t going anywhere. I am not issuing a statement that I do not hate black men, because the notion is idiotic, specious, without merit and the request sounds strikingly similar to other loyalty oaths that were required during some of the darkest periods in the history of the civilized world.
My ancestors didn’t survive the Middle Passage, slavery, Jim Crow, and the Flavor of Love, to have me turn tail and run at the first sign that some unknown person might be irrationally offended by a link on MY BLOG.
The only OATH I am taking is the following :
I solemnly swear that I will blog MY TRUTH, MY WHOLE TRUTH, and nothing but MY TRUTH. I promise to be open-minded enough to read an enjoy viewpoints that are different than my own. I vow that I am mature enough to withstand criticism and bold enough to respond in kind. I vow that I will not abandon a fellow blogger because some unnamed other blogger is offended by a mere link to a blog. I vow that I will hold high the banner of free speech by doing exactly what the founding fathers envisioned; I will confront offensive speech with more speech and not hide in the shadows carrying out a clandestine campaign to silence another blogger.Gem2001 from Whataboutourdaughters.org
Back to our regularly scheduled programming... Will y'all please take time to contact Rev. Al Sharpton and ask him WHY he has been silent about the comments made by DL Hughley in reference to the women of Rutgers?
